


Don't make me come in there after you

by Uy8hg



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Achievement Hunter Kings, Gen, Kings AU, Minecraft, New Nether Update, Some of them have magic, The Nether, minecraft au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uy8hg/pseuds/Uy8hg
Summary: The Nether has changed, which sparks Ryan's interest. But, from Gavin's perspective, he seems a bit more engrossed than normal.For RT Writers secret sunshine 2020!Written pre-October 2020
Kudos: 13





	Don't make me come in there after you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thisiswhatmylifehasbecome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thisiswhatmylifehasbecome/gifts).



> Happy Secret Sunshine, Void!
> 
> I was given the prompt of Kings Au, where Ryan is either showing off for the court or his slow descent into dark magic and others getting concerned. When I saw the new Nether update come out for minecraft, I just knew I could play around with that. Hopefully there's enough dark magic worries for you!
> 
> UPDATED AUTHORS NOTE: I will not be deleting past works of mine with Ryan, but I do not approve of his actions and will not be writing him anymore

Everyone felt it when the Nether changed. It began as a low rumble, very similar to an earthquake, except it didn’t stop. Gavin found himself waking slowly, but he didn’t pay it much mind, trying just to fall back asleep again.  


But then it got worse. The rumble just kept growing until entire buildings were shaking. It wasn’t something you could just “sleep through” anymore. All of Gavin’s little trinkets he’d collected over the years rattled, moving closer to jumping from their perches. He was too groggy to do much about it, and it wasn’t like most of his things hadn’t taken a leap from a high place before.  


Just as it felt like the shaking couldn’t get any worse, it stopped. For a moment, Gavin thought it was over. Still, he found himself dragging his body toward the edge of the bed, knowing that a meeting to discuss the quake would be happening sooner than later.  


Then, a huge shift, like the world was being dragged across a rough surface, catching on any tiny bump. Shift after shift, worse than any rollercoaster, rocked the once-calm night. Gavin had to throw out an arm and grab his headboard before he shook right off the bed.  


Just as he was sure he’d lose whatever remained of his dinner, the big one came. It was different than any of the shakes that preceded it. This one wasn’t just physical, but Gavin could feel it deeper inside him, like his soul itself was ripped from his body and shoved back in within an instant. His stomach dropped and he felt bile rise in his throat.  


But it was over before he could even process it. He felt sweat dripping from his forehead as he waited for something else to hit; he wasn’t about to be caught unaware. His balance was already questionable, then with his added sleepiness on top of it, he didn’t want to know what the “earthquake” would do to it.  


Nothing came. The night was back to being a tranquil, quiet calm that now felt entirely fake. Gavin didn’t trust it. His room, constantly lit with dim lanterns to prevent anything from spawning inside, seemed to dark and empty.  


A loud knock on the door was enough to finally startle him off the bed with a squawk. And then Michael was there, peeking his head through the door. “Meeting, boi. You good down there?”  


Gavin scrambled to get up and grab one of his creeper skin capes. It was the middle of the night, he highly doubted anyone would truly care about presentation, but his tumble to the floor left him feeling cold. “I’m good. Let’s go!”

The council of Achieveland was more than just the king and his trusted officials. It was the king, the retired king, a slew of friends who happened to be high up officials, and the select few who were actually there solely for business.  


Gavin settled into his chair between Michael and Geoff, who looked like he was about ready to fall asleep in his chair. Gavin stretched to poke him with his foot, which earned him a middle-finger that didn’t even require the retired king to open his eyes. He could hear Jack snickering from across the table.  


It was a surprise they could ever get any business done, let alone run a country. But everyone had their place and duty, and while they were all good friends, they were also very good at their jobs.  


Most everyone seemed to be pretty sleepy. Trevor looked ready to doze off in his chair at the head of the table. Jack, on Trevor’s other side opposite Geoff, was fiddling with the edge of the blanket around his shoulders. Next to him, Ryan was debating something with his neighbor Jeremy, while Matt interjected every now and then on Jeremy’s other side. Past Michael on their side of the table, Alfredo was staring at the ceiling and mouthing something, while Fiona had her head in her arms on the table, appearing asleep.  


Back at the head of the table, Trevor clapped a few times to get everyone’s attention. “Good night, everyone. I’m tired but something happened, so let’s get this thing going so we can go back to bed.” Sleepy mumbles of agreement rippled down the large meeting table. “Jeremy, call it.”  


Jeremy slammed his hands against the table, causing Ryan and Matt next to him to groan. “WhatarewedoingJack,” he slurred in a weird shouted-yet-whispered mumble.  


Trevor nodded solemnly and gestured to Jack on his left, who pantomimed tapping a stack of papers on the table.  


“We were all woken up by the world’s weirdest earthquake so we have to talk about it,” Jack reported. He scanned the table. “Does anyone know what caused it?”  


Trevor pointed at the other end of the table, where a guard was standing looking nervous. As all the eyes shifted to him, he did a quick salute that was more sloppy than anything. “At just after midnight, the Nether portal began shaking and sparking, coinciding with the beginning of the quake. As it got stronger, the color of the portal changed from purple to red. Then it shattered and the quakes stopped.”  


Ryan chuckled across from Gavin. “That’s fun. Have we seen that happen before?” The group all shook their heads before looking back at the guard, who still looked incredibly uncomfortable.  


“Not that I’ve seen or heard from any of the other portal guards.”  


“Thanks for that, you can go,” Trevor dismissed, waving the guard off. The guard let out an audible breath before practically running out of the room. When the door latched closed again, Trevor leaned back in his chair. “So now what? Anyone have any ideas for what our next steps are?”  


“Have you lit it again yet?” Ryan asked, waving behind him toward one of the attendants.  


“No, don’t think so. Figured we’d want Jeremy and Michael on the front lines for that.” The two military heads air-fist-bumped from opposite sides of the table.  


“Do you want to do that now or in the morning?” Michael questioned. “’Cause I left my sword and shield in my room.”  


“I’ve got my sword!” Jeremy declared, pulling his diamond sword out from under the table and setting it in the center for everyone to see.  


“Do you sleep with that or something?” Matt asked, shifting in his chair so that he was closer to Steffie than his old friend.  


“So what if I do?”  


Ryan finished talking to the attendant, shooing them off and out of the room. “I don’t remember reading anything about a Nether portal breaking without contact before, but I’ve got them started on skimming through what the royal library has.”  


“Do you know any spells that could tell you what happened?” Trevor suggested. “You, Jeremy, or Matt?”  


“I’ve got magic too!” Gavin piped up, scrambling to sit up properly. “I can try.”  


Ryan smirked at him from across the table. “So you know a spell we could use?”  


Everyone around the table chuckled as Gavin shrunk again. “No, but I bet you don’t either.”  


Ryan shrugged, and Jeremy and Matt gave similar negative responses. If anyone did, Ryan or Jeremy would have been the ones to know. Gavin’s magic was all light related and worked best in the daylight, while Ryan was almost the exact opposite. He thrived on doing things that weren’t realistically possible, and his experiments typically ended with unexpected results. Jeremy had briefly dabbled in blood magic, but he ran out of willing donors and texts to reference, which is why he shifted back to the military side of things with Michael. He still did research on things now and again, and was usually the first to volunteer for things.  


Which he was doing right at that moment, grabbing his sword again. “If we don’t have any magical ways of knowing, then we just have to light the thing up and head in ourselves.”  


“We should wait until morning,” Jack advised, and Geoff nodded along. “The portal’s off, so there’s little chance of something coming through. We don’t know if anything inside coming out will even light it in the right spot.” He gestured at the former king. “Remember when that enderman came and broke it that one time while you were inside? Then when you came back through, you were on the roof of the tavern in town?”  


Geoff chuckled. “Yeah, that was weird. We’re probably safe to take our time.”  


Trevor nodded. “I was thinking, we light it up in the morning, and we can send a small team in. Probably Jeremy, Michael, Ryan, Fredo, and a couple soldiers?”  


Alfredo, who had been relaxing on the other side of Michael, snapped to attention. “Why me?”  


Trevor shrugged. “You’re best with a bow.”  


“So’s Gavin! I hate the Nether, that place freaks me out.”  


“I don’t wanna go,” Gavin protested. “There’s too many holes in the Nether.”  


“So not you two,” Trevor cut in. “Does that work with you three?” He pointed at Michael and the two Battle Buddies.  


“I have a question,” Gavin asked, raising a hand before pointing at Ryan. “Why is he going again?”  


“Research,” Ryan said confidently, just as Trevor added, “I trust him to actually take notes on what’s happening.”  


Jeremy slapped the table again. “I take good notes! I pay attention.”  


“Then can I go for fun?” Ryan asked with a smirk at his friend. “As good company? What if I said I wanted some more netherrack for research?”  


Jeremy slumped back in his chair. “When you put it that way, I can’t stop you and you know it.”  


Ryan chuckled. “It’ll be fun!”  


“You are the only one who refers to the Nether as fun,” Matt commented over Jeremy’s lowered form. Ryan shrugged and turned back to Trevor.  


“Have we gotten all our squabbles out of the way?” the king asked. “Can we get back to the planning?” He shot a look first at the Battle Buddies, then at Alfredo, before he landed on Gavin. Gavin held his hands up in surrender. He hadn’t been the one to drag himself into the conversation.  


When no one else spoke up, Trevor mirrored Jeremy’s relaxed pose in his own chair. “Alright, then let’s get working. I want to go back to sleep.”

The plan was pretty straightforward. The initial group, headed by the two military generals Jeremy and Michael, along with Nether enthusiast Ryan, would light the portal and take a quick look inside. They had half an hour before a retrieval squad would be sent, headed by a begrudging Alfredo. It was the overall hope that any additional rescue missions would not be needed.  


And it went well. Alfredo had just been getting suited up when the first group reemerged, a little scorched but otherwise fine. The morale, however, was more grim than anything else.  


The recap meeting went long, and for good reason.  


The Nether had changed. Entirely. It still had netherrack by the mountain-full, more lava than anyone would feel comfortable around, and the hot air scented thick of smoke and rot.  


But there was so much more. What had once been oceans of lava and continents of netherrack were broken up into biomes that mocked what could be found in the overworld kingdom. Unnatural red and blue trees with lichen-like leaves and vines that grew the wrong way. Burned stones that formed spikes stretching high above their heads. Veins of gold shards. Massive structures in the distance, some familiar looking and some entirely new.  


The calm, disfigured pig-like men who had wandered aimlessly with their broken gold swords had all but vanished. In their place were various hog like creatures Jeremy had taken to calling piglins instead of pigmen. At first glance, they’d seemed calm like their pigmen predecessors, until they’d seen the group and started firing crossbows at them.  


In addition, there were the hoglins, big boar like creatures who just wanted to ram anything moving. Jeremy also reported seeing shapes down in the lava lakes, but they hadn’t gotten near any.  


There were two major take-aways. The first was that everything they’d done in the Nether, all their roads to different kingdoms and safe areas, had disappeared. Jack wasn’t pleased, having been the major builder behind them all, but it wasn’t the worse thing. He and Matt could start rebuilding with the wood from the apparently fireproof trees.  


The other was the gold. The new beings of the Nether seemed to be fascinated with the stuff, so much that they’d ignore anything else happening around them if there was gold present.  


Now that was something that could be used to their advantage.

The change was unexpected, but Gavin didn’t really care as much as the others seemed to. He’d never been one to go in and explore the Nether beforehand, and with the added danger now, he still didn’t plan to spend much time in there. He was happy that his boi didn’t seem all that interested, either.  


But Ryan was.  


Gavin considered himself close to the rest of the council, as they were all good friends, but he had an interesting relationship with Ryan. They had the closest jobs, both using their magic to help Trevor whenever he needed it, but Ryan’s methods of finding new magic were . . . not the safest.  


While Gavin tried to bring positivity to his magic, Ryan took a more chaotic approach. Whatever got him results, whether it was research or experimentation or blind luck, was what he did.  


And Ryan . . .  


Ryan was fascinated with the new Nether.  


Not having much to do, Gavin wandered up to Ryan’s tower study/laboratory later in the afternoon after the meeting. He’d expected to find Ryan with his nose in a book or working on some potions of something. He had not been expecting to find the contents of Ryan’s travel backpack in a pile off to the side and a new assortment of potions and books scattered around the empty carcass of the bag in the center of the floor. Potions bubbled on a table, the familiar orange glow of fire resistance, but there were several vials of dark liquid that bubbled in a way the potions Ryan usually made didn’t.  


The sorcerer himself was nowhere to be found until Gavin heard steps behind him. He stepped further into the room and held the door open as Ryan appeared carrying several large bags.  


“Oh, hi Gavin!” Ryan greeted cheerily, walking in to deposit his new items on whatever available surface he could find. “How long have you been up here?”  


“Just got here,” Gavin mumbled, closing the door behind the other man. He knew Ryan liked to keep the door closed since it muffled most of the odd sounds that sometimes came out of the lab. “What’s all this?”  


Ryan turned back to Gavin, wiping his forehead. “What’s what?”  


Gavin stared at Ryan and gestured to the rest of the room. “All of it. The potions, the bag–” he pointed at the bags Ryan had just set down, “–the other bags.”  


“Oh, I’m going to the Nether,” Ryan answered cheerily, turning to open his new bags and pulling out a handful of redstone dust. “Have to be prepared for anything.”  


As Ryan wandered over to his potion station, Gavin glanced closer at the nearest books to him. Just more potion recipes, theories on how to make them stronger or last longer. “I thought you weren’t going on the next research mission,” Gavin mused. If he remembered right from the meeting earlier, Jeremy was going to bring a small squad in tomorrow to test the limits of how much the new piglins liked gold. That wasn’t something that required Ryan.  


“I’m not going with them,” Ryan explained casually, backing away as a potion he had been tinkering with let out a burst of smoke and turned a muddy brown color. “That’s not supposed to happen.”  


Gavin watched the older man fiddle around with some of his other potions before moving around the room some more. He’d stop at one of his stations, look or shift something around, before moving on. There was probably some rhyme or reason to it that was lost on Gavin.  


“Why are you going, then?” he finally asked when Ryan paused to shine a golden chest plate. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we actually know what’s going on in there?”  


Ryan turned toward Gavin so quickly it made Gavin take a step back. There was something in his eye, that evil glint that showed up when Ryan had a plan that none of the rest of them would agree to. Last time that glint had appeared, he and Matt had designed a contraption that would cause a small explosion around someone every fifteen minutes. It hadn’t hurt whoever was wearing the contraption, by some odd means, but it had been very annoying, particularly for Jack, who somehow got a lot of his stuff blown up.  


Basically, that glint meant nothing good, but Ryan always wore it with a smile.  


“Gavin, you didn’t feel it,” he said, with awe in his voice. “There was magic in the air itself, more than here. I could feel the power it was giving me. There’s so much to explore in there, so many new possibilities. I can feel them calling me.” Ryan’s eyes widened and he crossed the room to put his hand on Gavin’s shoulder. “You should come with me.”  


“What?” Gavin squawked, shifting out from under Ryan’s grip. “Why should I go?”  


“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Ryan cheered. There it was, that ‘fun’ word again in reference to the Nether. “You like the sun, so maybe there will be some fire magic for you or something. Also, think of the gold! You’re the one who basically made it the symbol of our kingdom, you should be excited.”  


The two of them turned, almost in synch, to look at the only fabric item hanging on Ryan’s wall. It was a flag of their kingdom, a black background with a green star inside a four-segmented ring. The center of the star had rectangle in it, a purple square at the bottom with several gold squares above it. The Tower of Pimps, a silly joke Gavin had made with Geoff one day that Geoff had loved so much he’d made it part of the kingdom’s seal. It had somehow become so iconic that, even when Geoff ‘retired’ and appointed Trevor king, it had stayed.  


Ryan had enchanted this particular flag so that the embroidered thread of the Tower glowed, sparkling every time you moved your head.  


“Think of how many Towers you could make, Gavin,” Ryan taunted. “You could be the first to build one in the new Nether.”  


Gavin could almost see it. It would be outside of whatever building Jack and Matt built around the portal, most likely in the way of something. Michael, Jeremy, and Fiona could help. Ryan would make it extra shiny, a beacon so that people could find their way back to safety.  


But it wasn’t safe there yet. It had been less than twenty-four hours since everything changed. They had no idea how stable this new version of the Nether was, or how long it would even last.  


“I don’t think it’s a good idea to spend a lot of time in there yet, Ryan,” he shifted, eying the gathering of supplies. “How long are you even going in there for?” The Nether, while the fastest mode of transportation to far off places, was not good on your health. It was best to keep trips short, and from the sound of this new change, he could imagine it might be even worse.  


“Just a day or so.” Ryan noticed Gavin’s glance and moved to arrange his things into something more cohesive. “I don’t know if the extra magic is residual from the overhaul or if it’s a staple of the new Nether, but I want to use up as much as I can.” He paused, humming to himself. “I don’t think we’ve tested beds yet. Wonder if they still explode.”  


“Ryan, do we–” Gavin started, not quite sure how to word his question. “Do we know if we can respawn, Ryan?”  


The old Nether had had some . . . weird qualities about it. It was extremely dangerous with all the lava in it, but there had been some sort of built-in safeguard. If you fell in lava or died in any other way, you felt the death, sure, but you’d wake up the next morning on this side of the portal. A little exhausted, but still alive. No one, not even Ryan, had been able to figure out how it worked, but had that carried over?  


While Gavin had his mini-crisis over how much they could cheat death, Ryan just shrugged. “No idea. Guess we’ll find out.”  


“‘Guess we’ll–’ Ryan, doesn’t that worry you, Ryan?” Gavin sputtered. “I know you do some crazy stuff, but you could die!”  


Ryan waved him off. “I’ve nearly died plenty of times. I don’t exactly do ‘safe’ things. Remember the time I tried to build a nuclear reactor?”  


Gavin gestured at the one window Ryan had, which he kept curtained most of the time. “If you opened the window, you could still see the crater out in the woods.”  


That got Ryan to stop shoving things in his bag and look up at the window. He wandered over and pulled back the curtain, making Gavin wince at the sudden shift in light levels. Ryan hummed, undeterred. “I thought you were going to try to fix that. Or was that Jack?”  


“We both tried, but there’s still residual fallout. What did you expect?”  


“Honestly? Not much.”  


Gavin groaned. “Is there any way we can talk you out of whatever you’re going to do?”  


“Nope! Trevor already gave me the go ahead.”  


“Trevor has also, historically, given the go ahead to let us tie him to an empty weapons rack and magically attach Jeremy to the wall. Several times.”  


“Your point?”  


“I don’t even know anymore,” Gavin admitted. He still didn’t trust this new Nether, but he hadn’t actually been in it yet. Ryan had, and while Ryan was known to have wild ideas, most of the time no one got hurt. Ryan knew how to take care of himself. “Anything I can help with?”  


For the first time since Gavin had gotten there, Ryan looked at him confused. “Really? Don’t you and Michael have plans or something? Fiona maybe?”  


“Michael’s tired from the Nether trip and Fiona had other plans. I’ve got nothing else to do right now.” He didn’t, but he also wanted to see what Ryan was planning.  


Gavin had no idea if Ryan caught onto his ulterior motives, but he seemed happy to have the extra help. “Okay! You know how to make fire resistance, right?”  


“Maybe?”  


“Good enough. Let’s get started.”

Ryan was gone for two days. When he’d told Gavin he’d be gone for a day or so, Gavin had hoped it was the lower end of the spectrum. Jeremy’s group had come back before dinner time with only a few sightings of whatever Ryan was doing. Gavin knew Ryan had taken plenty of food, but there still wasn’t any water in the Nether, so he didn’t know how Ryan was managing not to become dehydrated in the heat.  


When he did show back up, at two in the morning with no idea what time it was, he’d immediately shut himself in his study. No one was even sure if he’d taken a shower, but there was a bed in his study if he needed it. Jeremy had gone to check on him when he’d gotten up, but that was all anyone had heard from him. Unlike Jeremy’s return, which was a council matter, Ryan’s motivations were, currently, purely personal and didn’t require a group debrief.  


That afternoon, Gavin wandered up the tower to knock on Ryan’s lab door. After a minute of waiting and no response, he tried the door.  


Locked. Not surprising. It had been made a rule a long time ago that Ryan had to lock the room when he wasn’t around so that no one could get in and mess with anything. On the other hand, if he was in there working on something, he had to leave it unlocked in case anyone needed to get in there if something went wrong.  


So, Gavin’s only conclusion was that Ryan wasn’t in there. Which left the almost more worrying question of where was he?  


After no luck of finding him in his room, down in Matt’s redstone lab, the regular library, the magic library, or any of the other popular common areas, Gavin was out of ideas. And when he was out of ideas, there was always one place he ended up.  


“Hi, Michael boi!” he called, waltzing out of the castle toward the archery field. Michael let his arrow fly, missing the target by several feet. He turned to meet Gavin with a frown.  


“Really? Is that required every time you come visit me?”  


“Aww you don’t like me coming to visit?” Gavin teased, draping himself on the bench for spectators.  


“I don’t like it when you make me miss. It’s like you know the exact moment I’m about to shoot and you decide to yell at me.”  


“It’s a gift. You want that arrow back?”  


“That would be great.”  


Gavin searched the tree line behind the row of targets until he found the stray arrow. It was pretty simple magic to pull the arrow back out of the bush it had caught itself in, reversing its flight in a slow, shaky wobble before Gavin broke the magic, dropping the arrow at Michael’s feet. He’d modified the original spell he’d based the trick off of when he was really into archery and didn’t want to collect the arrows himself.  


“Is that the only reason you came out here? To mess me up?”  


“Nah. Couldn’t find Ryan.”  


“So I’m choice number two?”  


“Michael, you’re always choice one, Michael!” Gavin leaped up, ready to give his boi a hug, but Michael held out a hand before Gavin could even take a step.  


“Sure, Gav. But seriously. I don’t know where Ryan is.”  


“I hope Jeremy might be out here sparring but he’s not here, either,” Gavin continued, glancing to the side toward the rest of the combat areas. There were pairs practicing all sorts of sparring, but none of them were Jeremy.  


Michael opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Jeremy jogged out of the castle behind them. “I’m back! I’ve got water! Oh, hey Gav. Here to shoot with us?”  


“Sure!” Gavin said just as Michael said “No.”  


Gavin frowned at Michael. “Aww, Micoo, you don’t want me here?”  


“Course not,” Michael scoffed, turning back to his archery practice. “You’ll distract us.”  


“Then I won’t talk to you,” Gavin pouted, turning to Jeremy. “I’ll talk to Lil’ J!”  


“Works for me,” Jeremy chimed, setting the pitcher of water and cups down. “I didn’t know you were coming so I didn’t get you a cup.”  


“’s fine. I don’t know how long I’ll be out here.”  


“He wants to know about Ryan,” Michael said loudly, still not looking at the pair.  


“Oh.” Jeremy tossed an unstrung bow toward Gavin, who just managed to catch it without dropping it. “I saw him briefly this morning.”  


“Only briefly?” Gavin asked, quickly stringing his bow. It’d been a while since he’d shot, but he’d missed it.  


“Yeah. I think I woke him up, but then he seemed to have so much energy that I don’t know. He was talking really fast about all the Nether stuff he’d found, and I only understood part of it.” Jeremy let go of an arrow, landing it solidly on the target, but not in the center. Gavin took the spot on Jeremy’s other side and starting picking an arrow.  


“Did he seem hurt at all?” Michael asked before Gavin could.  


“No, not that I could tell. Maybe his voice was a bit hoarse, but the Nether will do that to you.”  


Gavin zoned the other two out as he raised his bow, even though not listening was the opposite of what he came out here for. He slowed his breathing as he adjusted, closing an eye and scoping out the target ahead of him. With a steady exhale, he let the arrow go, finally breathing in as it landed solidly a few inches to the right of the bulls-eye.  


“It’s not fair that you’re really good at this,” Jeremy declared, breaking Gavin out of his little trance and bringing him back to reality. “It’s been, what, months since I’ve seen you practice?”  


Gavin shrugged. “Guess it sticks with you. Ask Fredo.” He swiped his fingers, starting to bring his arrow back.  


“Anyway, I’m pretty sure he went back in,” Jeremy continued. “His bag was still packed and it looked like he’d been collecting some more food.”  


It was a good thing Gavin hadn’t moved to shoot again, because he was sure the shot would have gone wild. As it was, his arrow dropped unceremoniously on the ground halfway back.  


“He what?” he asked, voice higher than he expected. “Already?”  


Jeremy shrugged, eyeing Gavin’s dropped arrow. “I don’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised. He seemed real excited about it.” Jeremy paused for a second to think before adding, “I think I saw him talking to Jack, if that means anything to you.”  


Gavin didn’t know if that meant anything important, but he’d take any bit of information he could get. “Right then. Guess I’ll go find Jack.”  


“Really?” Michael asked. “You’re going to shoot one arrow and be done? Why are you so worried about Ryan, anyway? He knows how to take care of himself.”  


“You know how he gets, though, Michael,” Gavin protested. “He doesn’t know when to stop himself. Remember the missiles?” He pointed to an empty section of the skyline. “Remember that mountain?”  


“You have a point,” Jeremy admitted. “Plus, the Nether’s still dangerous.”  


Gavin quickly resumed his magic on the arrow, zipping it up to himself faster than he might have liked so he could put it back and unstring his bow. “Thanks, J. I’ll go ask Jack.”  


“Yeah, no prob.”  


Jack told him something very similar to Jeremy; Ryan was planning to head back into the Nether. He’d met up with Jack to discuss some building plans for a new little base that he could work out of, but Jack hadn’t wanted to rush.  


“I don’t know if he actually went in yet or not,” Jack told him. “I haven’t seen him since, but I told him it would be a few days until I got to his project.”  


“Well, thanks, Jack,” Gavin mumbled. Since he couldn’t find Ryan, that meant he had to have gone back in, right? But what about water? Or sleep? Or waiting for everyone else to make things safer? Gavin didn’t know if it was his magic telling him that Ryan was being reckless, since no one else seemed as worried as he was, or if he was the only one who had put together all the clues.  


“He’ll probably show up,” Jack assured. “There have been plenty of times when he’s shown up somewhere odd while working on a project.”  


“I guess you’re right,” Gavin agreed, but that didn’t mean he had to feel good about it.

Ryan was still nowhere to be found the next day, but Fiona had a project for Gavin and Alfredo, so he couldn’t worry about the other man as much as he was tempted to.  
It was the day after that when, with no sign of Ryan, Gavin got really worried. He finally marched himself down to the Nether portal to get a solid answer as to which dimension his magical friend was in.  


“Lord Haywood?” the guard asked, one who looked suspiciously like the one who’d reported to the council that first night. “He went in a few days ago. Said something about starting the road to the other kingdoms.”  


“And has he come out since then?”  


“…No.”  


“Thanks.”  


That was not a good sign in Gavin’s book. And he was done not doing anything about it.  


It took two hours for him to do all of his prep for the Nether. According to all of the sources who had been inside, you had to wear at least a little bit of gold prominently, or else the piglins would attack you. Luckily, he had a pair of golden grieves and sabatons that Michael had given him as a joke at one point. They were his “Jester boots,” since a lot of their friends liked to joke that that was the original job Geoff had given him in the castle.  


He had an iron sword that Michael had gotten him and a shield from Jeremy, just in case he came across any hoglins or angered the piglins. He’d borrowed a pick from Jack, assuring him he’d bring it back.  


His backpack wasn’t nearly as stuffed to the brim as Ryan’s was, but he had food to last him for a while and he’d drunk a lot of water earlier in the day. He picked some of his lightest clothes and only minimal armor to try to keep himself from overheating. The only thing he couldn’t part with was his creeper scarf, since it tended to be his staple item.  


After several attempts and the memory of Ryan’s help a few days earlier, he’d made both types of fire resistance potions he could: one to drink, to help his temperature regulation, and one to splash on himself for the actual fire resistance.  


Feeling as ready as he was going to get, and giving the others a three-hour window before coming to rescue him and Ryan, he stepped through the portal.

The portal let him out into a boxed off room of red-purple and blue wood, with only a blue door out of it. There were a few chests filled with random items, but nothing that gave him any clue as to where Ryan might be.  


Outside, the Nether was just as terrifying as it had sounded when the others told him about it. There was a thin quartz path that led straight out of the house before it was swallowed by the netherrack. Above him to the right, he could see the lichen-like leaves of some blue trees. To his left, far below him, was the reliable ocean of lava.  


He could see a path mined out to his right, up toward the trees, so he followed that. As he climbed, he looked out over the portal house and the lava, trying to make out what was on the other side. There was still a red haze of fog and smoke throughout the area, but he thought he could make out some darker stone on the horizon.  


When he reached the top, there were several stumps mixed in with the mushroomy trees. There were even a few planks placed in random shapes, likely made hastily in defense. He could see a vague path of terrain that had been obviously modified by his friends. He had no idea which way Ryan might have gone, but any sign of humans was better than none. Luckily, he hadn’t had any sight of the new mobs yet.  


And then he heard a huff behind him.  


Gavin yelped, jumping as he rushed to put his back to a tree. He could now see a creature almost as tall as he was, with odd pink skin and wearing a torn brown shirt and shorts. Its face roughly like he’d pictured when Jeremy said it was a humanized pig. It wasn’t as zombified as the pigmen were, with just a bit more sentience to it. It was currently eyeing Gavin’s boots, crossbow down by its side.  


“Good piggy,” Gavin muttered, but the piglin didn’t react. “I’m just going to leave now.” Throwing frequent glances over his shoulder, he sneaked further into the Nether. The piglin watched him go until he was a good distance off, then turned to wander away in search of more gold.  


Well, at least he knew the boots worked, even if they were uncomfortable and made small clanking noises when he walked.  


Gavin had places to be (out of the Nether as fast as possible) and Ryans to find (he only the knew the one, technically).  


After a bit more following the randomly placed planks and other blocks, he spotted a small, clearly man-made tunnel into the netherrack to his left. He couldn’t see an end to it, but it seemed straight. There were still blocks leading in a general path further in the open, toward what looked like a red forest this time.  


He glanced down the tunnel again. There was no signage, but if he’d been following the main group’s path so far, and Jeremy had said they’d only seen Ryan a couple times, there was a good chance that this was the way to the sorcerer.  


Gavin pulled the creeper scarf up over his nose to block out some of the smoke and fog gathered in the tunnel and ventured inside.  


It went straight for quite a while, until lava spilled across the ground and an indent to the right had been made to circumvent it. Gavin continued through all the jags and past all the patches of lava. One good thing, at least, was that none of the mobs seemed to want to hang out in a cramped tunnel.  


After maybe ten minutes of tunnel adventures, it opened up into an open section of cavern, though the new terrain had several patches of two types of darker stone. He stayed at the tunnel’s mouth, searching around for any sign of which direction to go. He had a few markers in his backpack, but he didn’t exactly like the idea of walking blindly around the Nether.  


Just as he was deciding he might have to, he realized that one of the shapes in the distance blurred by the fog was more angular than the rest. Either it was something his friends had made, or it was a fortress. Both of those would have been points of interest to his friends, and he finally had a direction again.  


As he approached, it took on the darker purple color of a fortress. At least that was something familiar to Gavin, and provided a bit more cover. Granted, it also opened the door to death by Blaze or Wither skeleton, but he had experience with those. If he could avoid getting lost, this was definitely a place Ryan might be, and he needed to explore as much as possible.  


He stopped to pull out his markers, a collection of signs and colored strips of ribbon, before hiking his bag back onto his shoulders and beginning his plunge.  


After only ten minutes, Gavin was already horribly lost, but he’d been setting his markers. He’d had to run from a Wither or two, but he’d gotten away. The fortress had also formed into a mountain, blocking his vision of his surroundings as a whole. He was just beginning to wonder if he was going to run out of markers when he turned the next corner in the underground section he was in and found a wall of purple planks.  


“That’s promising,” Gavin mumbled aloud, before immediately coughing at the rush of smoky air in his lungs.  


A mumbled sound came from the other side of the planks, and Gavin strained to stop coughing to see if the noise would come again.  


After a few moments of silence, he heard the distant voice of Ryan say something that sounded suspiciously like his name.  


Gavin adjusted the scarf over his mouth, prepping for the lungful of smog he was about to get. “Ryan!” he called at the wall. “That you, Ryan?”  


“One moment!” was the garbled response. Gavin shot a look back down the path he was on before leaning against the wall next to the planks and sliding to the floor. He felt a shudder of heat, a sign that his potions were going to run out soon. Before he could reach around to his pack, he heard a door open back the way he’d come, followed by footsteps getting closer.  


They skidded to a stop as a form rounded the corner, and Gavin found himself looking up at a soot-covered Ryan. Like Gavin, he’d ignored any sort of formal wear, choosing instead to wear a gray shirt that blended in with the soot and loose pants. He was wearing the broken gold crown Geoff had given him as a present once, claiming that Ryan was the “royal mad sorcerer.”  


Ryan smiled down at Gavin with a happy yet surprised look on his face. “Gavin!” He extended a hand to help Gavin up, which he took gratefully. “Let’s get inside.”  


Gavin followed Ryan back down the corridor around another corner before pausing at a purple door in the wall. Gavin glanced around, but didn’t see any of his markers, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t walked past and missed the door.  


The door led to another straight tunnel through the netherrack, but this one was much shorter than the one he’d gone through to get here. It quickly opened into another section of buried fortress that Ryan had blocked off until it was a little crossed intersection version of a base. One end had a real chest that already looked like it was overflowing. Another had a makeshift table that had a rudimentary potions setup, filled with fire resistance and other combinations Gavin didn’t recognize. A corner had two decent sized piles of dark dirt.  


“Sorry it’s such a mess,” Ryan rambled, moving in to shove random items around until there was room on the floor to sit. “This is just a temporary base until Jack or Matt can come and help me build an actual place to work. Also wasn’t expecting company.”  


“‘S alright,” Gavin said, but he wasn’t actually focusing on the conversation. He was watching Ryan move around the small space just as efficiently as he would in his study at home. It didn’t sit right with Gavin how comfortable Ryan had made himself in the Nether already, a place that was all but designed to be hostile and uncomfortable to stay in. “How long are you planning to stay in here?”  


Ryan eyed some of his potions. “Maybe an hour or two more? Maybe more. I need to explore a bit more for materials.” He turned to Gavin with a casual smile. “You should know, as a magic user, that some things only work in here. There are just some experiments I physically can’t run back home.”  


Gavin was hesitant to ask, but he couldn’t ignore his curiosity. “Like what?”  


Ryan’s eyes did the spark of excitement thing again and Gavin instantly regretted his choices. “Where to start?! I mean, the Nether now has so many new things in it and I can still feel the magic Gavin, it is just begging me to find all of its new outlets. Ooh ooh I know where to start!” Ryan rushes over to a pile of things that looked like poorly made shoes and, after seven minutes of digging, pulled out a pair. As he turned around to show Gavin, the leather or whatever hide they were made out of caught the light and Gavin could see the shimmer of magic they gave off.  


“I haven’t set up a good testing spot yet, but when I do, this could revolutionize Nether travel. These have an enchantment on them that let you go super fast, but only on a specific type of terrain. To be honest, I’m not even sure what terrain that is, there’s so many new blocks here. I was wearing them to test out what they did and suddenly I was on the floor. My legs completely flung out from under me from the sudden change of speed–”  


“Couldn’t you have just tripped, though?” Gavin interrupted.  


Ryan shrugged. “Maybe. But that doesn’t change that these are enchanted. That just means they do something else!”  


Gavin hummed. “What if they were speed boots and you trip? Like, would you break your legs?” Ryan stared at Gavin, a curious look on his face. “No, I am not volunteering to test that.”  


“An interesting theory, though. What are the ramifications of extended speed? How do you stop?” Just as quickly as Gavin’s suggestion had made the spark dim, it had grown again. Despite the new question, Ryan still threw the boots back in the pile, already starting in on another subject.  


“You remember soul sand, right?”  


“Yeah.”  


Ryan whirled on Gavin, holding up two fistfuls of dark soil with an expectant look.  


“... What about it?”  


“There’s more!”  


“More sand?”  


“No, a different type.” Ryan hurried forward to give Gavin a closer look. He alternated which hand he held closer, making little expectant hums like Gavin was supposed to see something other than two leaking piles of dirt. “See?”  


“No, not at all,” Gavin said with a bit of a worried chuckle. “But I feel like you’re going to tell me about it anyway.”  


“Correct! We had soul sand, and now we have soul sand plus soul soil. Similar, but not quite as dense, or soul-filled. I think. But I think there’s more ways to harness the souls inside them now!”  


“‘Harness the souls inside?’ Do you even hear yourself sometimes, Ryan?” Gavin gently pushed Ryan’s hands away from him, which Ryan took as a cue to move back around his workspace.  


“No idea what you’re talking about,” Ryan said in a perfectly cheery tone, which made it that much harder for Gavin to tell if Ryan was joking or not. He hoped he was, but he wouldn’t doubt it if he wasn’t. “Now. Watch this. It’s going to be quick.”  


Ryan sifted some of the dirt from his hands back onto one of his tables until he had just enough to coat his hands. He shook them out a few times before rubbing them together. Then, with a quick excited look at Gavin, he started rubbing his forefinger and thumb together, slowly at first before he picked up speed and added his other fingers, before he finally snapped.  


And with that snap, a blue flame appeared above Ryan’s fingers, licking down toward his skin while still dancing into the air.  


“Ryan, be careful, Ryan!” Gavin yelped, taking a step back, but he hadn’t even finished the sentence before Ryan winced and clamped his other hand on top of it. Instead of going out, Gavin could see the flames lick up between Ryan’s fingers.  


“Too much,” Ryan hissed as he rushed to pick up a rag from his table. Gavin didn’t get a chance to protest as to how that was not a proper fire safety solution before Ryan buried his hands in the cloth, rubbing aggressively. The rag caught, but didn’t become enveloped in flame like Gavin thought it would. It stayed on the side that Ryan had come into contact with, even as Ryan calmed down and started to scrape the fire off his fingers.  


After several moments of cleaning, Ryan stepped back, hands free of blue flame while the rag continued to host the fire on the floor where Ryan dropped it.  


“Ryan, what was that,” Gavin demanded. “Why did you catch yourself on fire? And in the Nether?”  


Ryan examined his hands, only slightly redder than before. “I thought I’d gotten enough of the stuff off my hands for it to only ignite, but I guess there was enough to sustain it for a bit.” He reached out a foot and stomped on the rag, which finally put out the fire. “Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn’t, but it only lights on soul soil and sand. It stays lit until it’s smothered out, but it doesn’t spread, which is an interesting near-contradiction.”  


Gavin stared at the rag, then back at Ryan’s hands again. “You’re skipping over the part where you just lit your hand on fire.” Gavin was no stranger to light and fire spells, but he knew how to do them safely. He knew how to keep from burning himself, and he would have thought Ryan had known as well.  


“It doesn’t exactly control as well as normal magical fire would,” Ryan protested. “I call it soul flame for a reason. It’s alive as long as it’s in contact with soul materials.”  


“So you coated your hands in the stuff? How is that the best way to show off something?”  


Ryan sighed, picking up the rag and wiping off the rest of the stuff from his hands. “Not my brightest moment, okay, but focus on all the possibilities we can do with this. Non-spreading fire that is alive.” Ryan’s voice turned wistful as he stared at his piles of dirt. “And that’s only the beginning of what the souls in these soils could do for us.”  


Gavin sighed. He hadn’t known what he’d expected when he entered the Nether in search of his friend. He’d seen the man obsessed with his work before, knew how reckless he could be. There were so many examples of what sort of collateral damage Ryan could cause, but it was rare that he got to see Ryan in the process of going down those reckless rabbit holes. Part of him knew he should stop him, but Gavin wasn’t sure how, or if he could even get through to Ryan.  


Ryan, however, seemed to shake himself out of his trance all on his own. “Anyway, I’m not being a great host. All I’ve done it talk about myself.” He leaned back against one of his tables, which immediately was pushed back by his weight against it. “What brings you here? I thought you hated the Nether.”  


“I do,” Gavin answered before he could think about the other question. He was still caught on how much Ryan had discovered in the short amount of time the new Nether had been here. “Ryan, how long did you say you were going to stay here for again?”  


A frown. “Not much longer. I need to go back for supplies. You’re ignoring my question.”  


Back for supplies? No, Gavin wanted Ryan to stay in the overworld. Too much time in the Nether wasn’t good for anyone. “Do you know how long you’ve been in here?”  


“Maybe half a day?” Ryan shrugged. “Now answer my question. Not that I don’t enjoy you here, but I don’t want you getting in my way if you’re not going to help or at least interact with me–”  


“Ryan, you’ve been gone two days! Full days, Ryan. No water, I imagine no sleep, you know how bad it is to drink potions consistently for long periods of time. You need to go home.”  


Gavin could feel himself shaking after his outburst. Ryan was smart, but he could also be a reckless idiot. He was mad at his friend for ignoring his own health, which drove him to coming into a place that made him uncomfortable.  


Ryan, however, was just frowning at Gavin. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. Thank you for the time update, but I can handle myself. I have things to do now, so you can either help or leave me to them.”  


“Did you hear anything I just said? Two days, Ryan. I know I’m not the only one worried–”  


“Then why are you alone? Why did they send you?”  


Gavin froze, and he could feel his eyes heating up as tears tried to form but couldn’t. No one sent him. He’d come because he was worried about a friend who didn’t seem to care about anything other than his new magic toys.  


“Fine.”  


With that, Gavin turned on his heal, the metal of his shoe armor scraping on the brick floor, and walked down the tunnel, slamming the door behind him.  


It was a good thing he’d left himself markers, because he was not in the headspace to remember his way out. He stared at the bricks, trying to count them to keep his mind off of what had just happened, only flicking his eyes up to catch sight of the next marker. More of this fortress was entirely underground than he recalled.  


Except his markers weren’t working as well as he wanted them to. He thought he’d been placing them strategically to show what way he took, but he may have overlapped his paths before, so there were occasionally intersections with multiple markers.  


Counting bricks wasn’t working either. His mind kept thinking about Ryan frantically trying to put his hands out, or tripping over his own feet. He could almost picture his friend zooming into an unexpected gap and plunging into the lava lake that was eternally present below them.  


Gavin had a title. He had a purpose in the kingdom. Sure, it was a running joke that Geoff had hired him because he thought he was funny, then he was too ingrained in everything when Trevor took over to kick him out, but that wasn’t true. Gavin was the Magical head of Energy and Light-related Matters. He was also the Head Researcher of Non-Magical Phenomena. He worked hard, even if he liked to mess around with his friends.  


So why was he so worked up because one of them didn’t want to listen to him?  


His steps were growing faster, which only made his golden armor clank louder and louder. Pig snorts constantly sounded from every direction, even if he couldn’t see their source. It all just served to remind him of where he was and how much he didn’t want to be there. He’d actually cared about Ryan’s health and he’d just thrown him out, even if he hadn’t said it outright, and yeah, Gavin’s feelings were a bit hurt, and his shoes wouldn’t stop clanking–  


He turned one last corner sharply, the green of the fabric he’d wedged into the brick wall nearly hitting him in the face from the breeze he caused, and suddenly he was in open air. Now that he was out of the covered part of the fortress, he could see the point where he’d climbed up into the thing.  


“Good,” he mumbled, starting his charge once more. The landscape was staring to appear through the fog, a mottled selection of reds, pinks, and blacks. The sooner he was out, the better. And the sooner he could stop hearing the dang clank of his dumb shiny shoes–  


“No,” he declared, stopping and sitting down against the small wall of the walkway. “I’m done with your stupid noises.”  


Gavin ripped the four pieces off, each one clattering as they piled up on the dark bricks. He stared at the mockingly shiny pieces of metal before standing up. The relief he got from even a few silent steps was enough to make him sigh heavily, relishing the freedom his legs felt. Of course, he only managed to breathe in more smog, which led to another coughing fit. He didn’t know how Ryan hadn’t coughed up a lung yet.  


No. No thinking of Ryan. Gavin could see the tunnel as he climbed off of the fortress, only to stop as he realized that the bits of lighter pink he’d seen from up higher had been piglins. Who now, of course, turned toward him as they raised their crossbows, because he was an idiot who had just taken off his only gold.  


As he stared at the tips of several arrows, and even a few swords, he was suddenly keenly aware of how hot he was. He’d heard that some of the others couldn’t feel it when a potion wears off, but as a magic user, he always knew when that last bit of brewed magic left his system. He could feel it right then, slipping away just as easily as he could fall off a cliff and find a fiery fate. One that would now actually hurt.  


But it was more likely that he’d be shot. Or stabbed.  


Think think, he only had a moment before they’d be on him. They liked gold, right? Did it have to be gold, or anything bright and shiny? He could do that.  


The irony wasn’t lost on him as he started rubbing his hands together, slowly then faster until he clapped and a bright ball of light appeared between his hands. A bigger version of Ryan’s spell earlier, but safer. Not fire, just a little fake star.  


The piglins recoiled, surprised. Then, when the light didn’t produce any gold, they did some weird equivalent of a frown and came at him again.  


And Gavin didn’t have any spells that could summon gold.  


“Hey, pig brains!”  


Gavin jolted, whipping around to see Ryan standing tall above him on the fortress ledge. He held a sack in one hand and before Gavin could even identify what he held up in his other hand, Ryan threw it past him.  


An ender pearl, Gavin realized, as Ryan disappeared and reappeared off to the side, making a triangle with the two men and the piglins as the points. With his now free hand, Ryan reached into his sack, pulling out and scattering a handful of golden nuggets further away from the triangle.  


The reaction was immediate. The piglins simultaneously lowered their weapons and rushed the loot. Ryan rushed in the opposite direction, toward Gavin.  


“You idiot,” he declared, grabbing Gavin’s wrist and hurrying them toward the tunnel. He shoved Gavin in first, pausing to chuck another few nuggets as hard as he could away from the entrance. Then he turned back to Gavin, panting.  


Without breaking eye contact, Ryan withdrew Gavin’s abandoned armor from his sack. “Were you trying to get killed? Wanted an express ticket out of here?”  


“Of course not! They were annoying me.”  


“Wouldn’t you rather be annoyed than waking up in front of the portal with a magic hangover?” Ryan shot a look back over his shoulder before pushing Gavin down the tunnel again. “We’re not out of their sight yet. You need gold.”  


Gavin didn’t like the thought of putting his ankle weights back on, and he hated that Ryan was right, but he grabbed the armor out of his hands anyway. “Give me a moment.”  


“No,” Ryan shot back, and it sounded on the verge of condescending, like he was teaching a child. Before Gavin could protest, Ryan yanked the armor back and set his crown on Gavin’s head. It was too big on him, threatening to sink lower on his head and cover his eyes. “Wear that, then. Just give me a second to get these on.”  


“Ryan, you don’t have to–”  


“No. I don’t. But you didn’t have to come here, either. But you did.” Ryan gazed up at Gavin from the ground as he tugged on the armor. “I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate that earlier.”  


Gavin could feel the blush rising in his cheeks, and he hoped it would be mistaken for the heat of the Nether. Actually, he knew that was the heat of the Nether, it was hot in there. Too hot for any comfort.  


Ryan seemed to notice the shift in Gavin’s demeanor, hurriedly securing the last bit of the armor. “Let’s get out of here, and we can talk about it over some food and water, okay? And then I think I need a nap.”  


Gavin laughed. “That all sounds very relaxing. How nice.”  


With a chuckle, Ryan steered Gavin around and gave him a gentle push down the tunnel. “Thank, Gavin. Really.”  


Not turning back, Gavin smiled. “Glad I could scare some sense into you. Why’d you come after me?”  


Ryan sighed. “I could feel your magic flaring from you. You might have even been glowing, though I could have been hallucinating that. Just felt I should follow you. Didn’t want to leave things on sour terms.”  


“You know I can’t be sour for long, Rye,” Gavin mumbled.  


“Yeah. I know. But I didn’t want to leave it hanging. Didn’t feel right.”  


They finally reached the end of the tunnel and Gavin could see the cliff that led to the portal. Ryan moved up so that they were walking together. Ryan looked ridiculous in Gavin’s jester boots, but Gavin liked to imagine he looked intimidating in Ryan’s crown.  


“Let’s go home,” Ryan said, though quieter than most of their conversation had been, as if someone would walk up any second and confess to overhearing the whole thing.  


Gavin smiled back at the sorcerer. “Yeah.”


End file.
